


The Dragonish Way

by oneiriad



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Cultural Differences, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 05:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9585299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneiriad/pseuds/oneiriad
Summary: Orphaned before he even hatched, young dragon Barry was raised by humans. He's very excited to finally meet another dragon - except then everything goes wrong...





	1. Chapter 1

Len snarled in frustration as the red dragon kept thrashing under him, even as he tightened his grip on the roots of its wings. What was the idiot thinking? Len was bigger and heavier than him and he had him pinned. For fuck’s sake, he could probably tear the other’s wing halfway off with a throw of his head right now - frankly, with the way the other was still struggling, it was more difficult to _not_ accidentally ending up maiming him.

Why didn’t the other just submit and be done?

Len took advantage of the other taking a moment to breathe to adjust his grip, freeing his jaws and replacing them with his wicked talons, making his opponent squawk indignantly and try to throw him off - again.

“Stop that, you moron,” Len growled. “You’ll just hurt yourself.”

But the other kept struggling. It made no sense - why was he making such a big fuss about a perfectly routine territorial fight? A barely 20 foot youth? Damnit, Len hadn’t even expected the kid to put up a fight.

He certainly hadn’t expected the sour scent of panic he was getting now.

“Shhhh,” he rumbled, trying a different tactic. “Settle down, kid,” and he lowered his head, rubbing the ridges of his face against the soft part of the other’s throat in a soothing gesture.

Well, it always used to work with Lisa.

“Everything’s going to be just fine,” Len crooned as he felt the other’s struggles lessen. “All you have to do is yield and it’ll all be over.”

“How?”

That made Len stop and blink. How? How to yield?

“Just - just say you yield,” he managed, not sure he could explain all the little signs of surrender he’d usually expect from an opponent.

“I yield! I yield!”

“Good boy,” Len offered, rubbing his head against the other’s throat again in reward. “Now, I’m going to let go of you, and you’re going to stay right here, understood?”

“Yes.”

Len sighed in relief at finally - finally - being able to let go of the other dragon, climbing down off of him and then turning back around to nose at his opponent.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” came the - not entirely unexpected - complaint. The other started to roll to get his wings away from Len’s snout.

“I am trying to see if you managed to tear your wing membranes with your idiotic behaviour!”

“My behaviour?! You’re the one who just showed up and attacked me!”

“What are you talking about, kid? I landed and issued a formal challenge for territory. I even introduced myself - which is more than can be said for you,” he growled.

The red dragon - who had been mostly busy getting to his feet - hung his head a bit.

“I’m Barry,” he offered.

“Nice to meet you, Barry,” and then he stretched, planting a foot firmly on the tail of the other dragon before he could slink away, “and where do you think you’re going? We’ve got things to talk about, you and I.”

“I’m going home,” Barry hissed and pulled his tail away from Len, “and we’ve got nothing to talk about!”

“No? How about the fact that I just defeated you in a territorial fight - do you even know what that means?”

“No! And I don’t care!” and Barry started stomping away, his wings probably too sore from the fight to make flight a comfortable choice right now.

“It means that you’re trespassing!”

Barry whirled, spreading his wings in a rather pointless threat display. Len could see a faint tremor, but the kid managed to suppress it admirably well, really.

“This is my home!” he hissed.

“And nobody’s chasing you out of it,” Len soothed, then sighed. “Bloody hell, kid, don’t you know anything? Didn’t your parents explain even the basic laws of territory to you before letting you fly off on your own?”

Len hadn’t expected the other dragon to just - droop at that question.

“My parents died,” came the quiet answer.

“Oh.” Len hesitated for a moment, then: “Well, guess it’s up to me, then. It’s simple - you lost the fight, so it’s not your territory anymore. It’s mine. But you can still live here - on my sufferance - and if anybody else shows up with a challenge or asking for hunting rights, you can send them on to me.”

“I thought dragons didn’t let other dragons into their territory.”

“Don’t be silly - most dragons your size live in another’s territory. Now - where’s your lair?”

“My lair?”

“Where you keep your hoard?”

“I am not letting you…”

“I am not taking your stuff,” Len cut him off. “But if it’s a nice lair, I might kick you out of it. Just answer the question, Barry.”

“It’s - my lair’s the barn behind the Burgomeister’s house.”

Len blinked. That - he really hadn’t expected that.

“You live in the human town?” he asked, just to be sure he hadn’t misheard.

“Yes.”

“Well, that lair you can definitely keep.” He cocked his head, curiously. “How did you end up living with the humans?”

“They raised me. I - they found my egg after my parents had been killed, they -” and then Barry stopped himself, took a steadying breath. “It’s none of your business. Can I go now?”

Len gestured permission with a sweep of his wing. Then he shook out his wings properly and leapt into the air.

“See you around, Barry!”


	2. Chapter 2

On the third day there was a knock on the barn door.

“Go away!”

Barry just wanted to be left alone. Iris said he was sulking and she was probably right, but then, his foster sister had been the only person so far to ignore his demands for privacy. Instead, she’d brought him breakfast and dinner every day, so he hadn’t had to leave his barn, and she’d commiserated with him about what a big bully that dark blue dragon had turned out to be. So that was alright.

The knocking, though, didn’t go away. It just got more insistent.

“I said: Go! Away!” Barry bellowed. “I don’t want to talk to anybody!”

The knocking stopped - but only to be replaced by the creaking of the barn door getting pushed open, and Barry suddenly worried that his foster father had finally come to have a talk with his sulking son.

A stranger entered.

He was big and brawny, he was shaved bald in the manner Barry had mostly seen among soldiers and some craftsmen, and there was a smell of smoke about him.

“Huh. Guess the market people complaining about their dragon hiding in the Burgomeister’s barn was right,” the main said, and Barry felt a moment’s guilt at the thought of the work he’d been neglecting. Just a moment's, though.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Mick Rory. Len sent me to check up on you.”

“Len?”

“Well, formally, he’s Leonardo of the Cold Snarl.”

“Oh. Him,” and Barry felt his curiosity dissipate at the thought of the big, blue dragon.

“Yeah, him. He got worried that you’d actually managed to do yourself an injury during your little tussle, what with how he hasn’t seen hide or scale of you since, so he asked me to check in on you.”

“Well, I’m fine,” Barry grumbled, then turned around and buried his head in the stack of hay. “So you can just go away and tell him that.”

He expected - well, hoped - that the man would just go away. Instead, he just stood there awkwardly for a bit before coughing lightly.

“So, this is your Hoard, then? It’s - very nice.”

Barry lashed his tail and buried his head a bit deeper. Sure, his hoard was tiny - the couple of trinkets they’d found in his parents’ lair and what he’d earned working for the merchants - but he didn’t want to listen to some bully dragon’s crony mock him for it anyway.

“Red, I’m serious. It’s a fine Hoard. Bigger than some I’ve seen. It’s just a bit - odd.”

Barry lashed his tail again, but the man seemed pretty good at not being somewhere he could “accidentally” sweep his feet out from under him.

“Are those books?”

“Yes!” and Barry dragged his head back out of the haystack, straws flying everywhere. “Yes, those are book, and yes, they are mine, and yes, I can read! Because I’m not some stupid animal!”

He didn’t mean to bowl the man over. At least Mick didn’t seem too upset about that - he just grinned and climbed back on his feet, reaching up to pat that same soft spot on Barry’s throat that had made him want to just settle down and relax when that dragon bully - when Len - had rubbed his head against it.

“Easy, Red, I meant no offense. Just never met a dragon who could read before, that’s all. Len sure can’t, and besides, all I’ve got is my name and my numbers, so who’d I be to talk?”

“I’m sorry,” he offered. “i just… - I’m sorry.”

The man made a dismissive gesture.

“Hell, Red, you can’t have met a lot of dragons if you think that that little outburst is something to be sorry for.”

Barry’s silence made him frown.

“Red - just out of curiosity: how many dragons have you met?”

“Just one,” Barry finally admitted, then growled, “and he turned out to be a bully!” He’d been so excited when he’d seen the big, dark blue dragon land, had been so full of questions for the first other dragon he’d ever seen - and then everything had turned out so very, very wrong.

“Oh, Red,” Mick sighed, “Len wasn’t bullying you. That’s just how dragons go about things. I’ve been travelling with him a couple dozen years by now and I’ve seen those challenges at least twice a year. Nine times out of ten it’s just a lot of strutting around and flapping of wings before everybody settles down to talk. But that reminds me…” and he paused to dig something out of his shoulder bag, “he sent you a present.”

He held out a ring.

Barry couldn’t resist lowering his head to take a closer look. It was a pretty ring, like bands of silver and gold braided together, and big enough that a man the size of Mick could wear it on his upper arm. He thought he might actually be able to wear it like a finger ring of sorts, pushed up past one of his talons and the first knuckle.

“For me?” he asked, wanting to be sure, even as he was stretching his greedy claws out for it.

“For you!” Mick confirmed, letting the ring slide down over one of Barry’s talon tips. “With the hope that it’ll help get the both of you past this little misunderstanding.”

“He said that?”

“Well - that’s what he meant.”

“What did he say?” Barry asked, forcing himself to stop looking at the shiny ring and focus on Mick.

“Something along the lines of “Mick, when you’re in town, go see if that young idiot actually did do himself an injury or if it’s just a bruised ego he’s nursing. Oh, and take him that ring. That should cheer him up.” Or something along those lines.”

Well, that didn’t sound like Len was really sorry - but it was a very nice ring.

“Right, Red, I’ll need you to spread your wings for me.”

Barry took a step backwards at that and reared his head back.

“Why?”

“Because Len’s gotten himself halfway convinced that you managed to tear your wing membranes and that’s why you haven’t been flying anywhere. If I can’t go back and tell him that I’ve seen that your wings are just fine for myself, you’ll have him showing up in a day or two and probably pulling the roof off this barn to get in. So…”

“You could just tell him that you saw them,” Barry offers.

“Yeah, and then he’ll smell the lie, the way you dragons can, and you’ll just have him here even sooner. Just suck it up and spread ‘em, Red, and I’ll be out of your barn in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

It was a pretty undignfied process with Barry ending up having to twist himself like a pretzel, because the barn wasn’t really that big, but eventually he managed to spread first one and then the other wing, letting Mick inspect them to his heart’s content.

Finally, Mick left, and Iris came climbing out of where she’d been hiding in the haystack.

“Well? Show me,” and he did, because it was a very nice ring and what’s the point of shinies if you don’t show them off to your foster sister, getting just the right amount of ohhhs and ahhhs?

“Maybe this Len really didn’t mean to come across as a bully?” she finally said, sinking down next to Barry’s head and reaching up to scratch the good spot just behind his eyebrow.

“Maybe,” he conceded, reluctantly.

Iris hummed and kept scratching, making Barry all relaxed and content.

“Barry? What was that bit about dragons being able to smell lies? Is there something you’ve neglected to tell me, dear brother?”


End file.
